Cube-building is a rigorous enterprise requiring effort belying its simplicity. I certainly didn’t mean to break GatheringMagic last week, but as Trick pointed out, it turns out that voting on everything is so awesome it hurts.

Gross exaggerations aside, this week is all about a bit of bookkeeping and priming. If you’ve been looking for a final list and itching to see what some sample drafting will look like, you’re in luck. It’s the final countdown to me passing things over to Trick, and the logistics of actually having the Cube assembled, but now is the time you can get even more hands-on with Community Cube action.

No polls or checkboxes. No winding explanations. It’s a recap and link to what will become a fun way to burn some hours of time drafting. Yeah, you read that right: drafting the Community Cube.

Bringing Down the House

Last week’s two-part massive review and vote-via-pluralism for additions and cuts started with a very clever choice: making the Cube completely “compatible” with MTGO (a suggestion from the ever-clever Thea Steele). The vote was resoundingly in favor of this, which resulted in the following cards being cut up front:

• Nightwind Glider, Thermal Glider, Cho-Manno’s Blessing, and Seal of Cleansing
• Illusionary Forces, Flood, and Withdraw
• Undertaker
• Fault Riders, Gerrard’s Irregulars, and Thunderclap

These cards are not available at all on MTGO and therefore are cut as a function of compatibility. Reconsidering these cards after their appearing online is certainly a future consideration. Let’s run through the sections:

White lost four cards due to MTGO restrictions, leaving the following nine as the most desired cuts:

• Glint Hawk Idol
• Castle Raptors
• Fledgling Griffin
• Mana Tithe
• Embolden
• Caravan Escort
• Inspired Charge
• Assault Griffin
• Cloud Crusader

These results show a strong preference for White to be aggressive, and trimmed away some of the more expansive creatures and effects to increase the overall speed. While some of my choices were dramatically different from where everyone ranked together, overall, these changes are certainly for the better.

Blue similarly lost three cards to MTGO restrictions, leaving us with just four more cards to fall off:

• Dreamscape Artist
• Prodigal Sorcerer
• Giant Tortoise
• Oona’s Grace

Dreamscape Artist is a pretty hefty infringement upon Green’s domain, Tim just doesn’t seem to cut it in today’s world, and Oona’s Grace seems superfluous. I like losing all these; however, I don’t like that Giant Tortoise was smacked down. I hope there are sufficient anti-aggro tools elsewhere that we won’t miss it, but it’s an all-star in my Cube.

Black lost one card due to MTGO restrictions, and we needed to take three more off:

• Grave Scrabbler
• Dark Ritual
• Rotting Legion

All of these falling off feel good. While Grave Scrabbler is certainly effective with discard outlets, we’re critically short here in the Cube. Dark Ritual is better left to degenerate combo decks than creature-based Cubing. And Rotting Legion is surprisingly powerful, but underwhelming considering what else is available.

Red lost three cards to MTGO restrictions, the last section impacted by that choice, and left us to pull nine more away:

• Ruthless Invasion
• Goblin Firestarter
• Brute Force
• Sparksmith
• Chartooth Cougar
• Stone Rain
• Viashino Bladescout
• Mogg Flunkies
• Martyr of Ashes

This is a pretty mixed result: While some tuning of Red’s abilities occurred, none of the spells made the list. R/G ramp with a few of those spells will be very strong. I’m also not a fan of losing Brute Force, because it is particularly powerful and a surprising tool.

Green needed eight to drop off:

• Ronom Hulk
• Tangle Hulk
• Rending Vines
• Withstand Death
• Winding Wurm
• Wild Leotau
• Jolrael’s Centaur
• Savage Silhouette

All of these changes speak to making Green more aggressive and efficient. While combat-relevant abilities and tricks can be useful, what’s left behind feels just fine for Green. Also, no one likes to have their mana tied up so much.

The multicolored sections had much smaller windows of opportunity:

• lost Esper Cormorants
• lost Probe, Gravelgill Axeshark, and Dimir Infiltrator
• lost Henchfiend of Ukor and Strangling Soot
• lost Horned Kavu and Branching Bolt
• lost Thrill of the Hunt and Sigiled Behemoth
• gained Unmake and Castigate
• gained Desecrator Hag
• gained Winged Coatl and Coiling Oracle
• gained Razorfin Hunter
• gained Cerodon Yearling and Fire at Will

The effects of these changes are fairly minor, and were discussed at length last time. The short version: I like many of them, but Gold is a very restricted section when it comes to options and power.

It’s Been a Short, Strange Road

With last week’s massive recap finished, let’s look forward to this week: drafting this darn good Cube!

First, you can find the current Cube list here. This document will stay up to date as it changes. There’s nothing earth-shattering about that.

Second, I must point out that any and all feedback about the Cube (at any time for any reason) can be done at the Community Cube Facebook page! This is highly relevant for the following item.

Third, the current Cube can be drafted at TappedOut.net via the aptly named The Community Cube Cube. Boom!

As promised, this week’s involvement isn’t about polls and numbers, data-mining a spreadsheet, or understanding the context of redundancy against variety; it’s about getting down with some awesome Cube action!

Keep track of the #CommCube hashtag on Twitter this week: I will be conducting live drafts (Follow @GatheringMagic and @the_stybs if you aren’t already!) and will place calls for draftees to join via the hashtag. Even better: If those who draft have the cards they drafted in their MTGO account, we can play some games.

The goal is to get an initial pass on feedback and begin feeling out where the kinks and sticking points are in our Cube. We won’t be making any radical changes, but gathering the feedback and getting it prepped for changes when we update things for Magic 2012 in a few weeks will certainly make the Cube a better tool!

Note that to join in and draft you’ll need to have a TappedOut account and be available to get into the queue. If you’re feeling particularly frisky, just create your own draft and get it filled that way! All the feedback can be posted to Facebook for future reference in changes. (And while I can’t help you find the cards you would need to play online with, I will be able to have a showdown with anyone who does!)

I’ll personally be firing off some drafts tonight (Wednesday, June 29), and squeezing some more in Friday and Saturday going into the holiday weekend here in the United States. Don’t miss out!